A healthy dose of fear is good. Too much is debilitating

If you read the magazines, social media or take a class, you can’t help…

Does your size-up typically look beyond the moment you arrive? With a good working fire, this may be an obvious part of a response. But what about for those responses where we arrive and believe there to be no fire? If nothing is burning, is there really anything to size-up?

While a good size-up should give us a clear picture of what we have and what we need to do to mitigate the situation, we must also consider the events that we may or may not actually see happening, as well as…

We have the distinct honor and pleasure to offer our Firefighter Bailout class at FDIC 2015 this year as one of the HOT classes.  We feel, like most, that we should train and drill constantly on the basics like engine company operations, search, ventilation, fire behavior, ladder work, forcible and the list goes on, to prevent the need for a firefighter to…

NEW March Fire Engineering magazine cartoon: Movie Magic Mentality
http://community.fireengineering.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1219672%3ABlogPost%3A614624

A fire in ventilation ductwork last week resulted in the evacuation of an automotive manufacturing plant in Michigan. Crews spent nearly two hours isolating the fire within some very large ducts used in the manufacturing process.

Ventilation ducts are used in many facilities, whether for dust extraction, material handling, or air quality management. In every case, fires within ductwork present several concerns for firefighters.

Here are just a few…

• Ductwork…

I talk a great deal about the role of the company officers and how they influence the members of your department.  When teaching officer development we hit hard on setting and establishing expectations and ensuring that there is follow-through with those expectations.  I was recently asked about expectations for my company officers.  They aren't too different from what I expected from my crew members when I was a company officer.

NEW Fire Engineering blog cartoon: No Irish Luck!

http://community.fireengineering.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1219672%3ABlogPost%3A614108

http://community.fireengineering.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1219672:BlogPost:614083

Check out the new podcast.